Daniel Craig Will Reportedly Return… For the Next ‘James Bond’ Movie

With the arrival of San Diego Comic-Con last week, the major announcements started flying fast and furious. After the avalanche of release date announcements, trailer releases, and other first-look headline-generators, the news broke that the gears of progress had begun turning for James Bond’s next cinematic outing. The official Twitter account posted that the still-untitled James Bond 25would hit American theaters on November 8, 2019 after an earlier release in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and also presumably after shiploads of online pirates have gotten their mitts on it. Americans do not tend to take delayed release dates lying down.

At any rate, yesterday’s news did not include the crucial detail as to whether incumbent star Daniel Craig (so delightful in the soon-to-come Logan Lucky, by the way) would return to don the tricked-out tuxedo once more. Today, that question has been unambiguously answered by the New York Times, with a new item declaring that Craig would indeed be back for his next mission. This comes as something of a surprise, considering that Craig has recently gotten pretty candid about how much he hates playing 007; the NYT item makes mention of an interview with a U.K. publication back in October wherein Craig claimed he’d rather slash his own wrists with a broken glass than assume the role of the superspy again. But then, Craig did later walk that quote back, claiming that he was overtired during the interview and out of sorts. Which seems fair, as I have threatened to murder several children during my hungrier moments.

In a broad analysis, this should be good news. Craig has been a crackerjack Bond over the past decade, a nice fusion of refinement and brutality. Though he’s clearly chafing under the role — his Logan Lucky performance is so dang fun because you can watch him getting out all the pent-up energy Bond’s stoic profile would not allow — his audience will welcome Craig back to the franchise.